Twitter argues that by promoting Google+ in search results, Google isn’t providing the most relevant social results. Meanwhile, Google has implied it would promote more pages from Twitter if it had adequate permission to do so. Twitter general council Alex Macgillivray then tweeted an example of why he thought Google’s new results were inefficient: Google search results for the search term “@WWE” — yes, with the “@” symbol — that did not include the organization’s Twitter page.

Now Google has confirmed to Mashable that it has never indexed the “@” symbol. In other words, the search engine has never recognized a Twitter handle when it was formatted that way.

So while a search for “WWE Twitter” still returns the organization’s Twitter feed before its Google+ page, “@WWE” returns the same results as “WWE” — in this case, with Google+ results first. Somehow a search for “+WWE” succeeds in returning a Google+ profile.

But really, Google? The company with a car that drives itself? In more than five years of people searching for Twitter handles, you never got around to adding the @ symbol to your index?

Even without the @ sign being indexed, however, the concern over the results for “@WWE” are valid: About 24,900 people have +1ed or added WWE to their circles on Google+ — but 792,642 people follow WWE on Twitter. In this case, and many others, the Twitter page is a more relevant social result than the Google+ page. Twitter ranks higher than Google+ for the WWE in Yahoo, AOL and Bing results.

On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook haven’t necessarily made it easy for the search engine to feature them in results. Facebook denies Google’s crawlers access to its private pages, for one obvious reason — they’re private. Twitter includes “nofollow” links on its pages that make it hard for Google’s crawlers to index them.

As Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan has pointed out, Google has indexed at least 3 billion pages. But Twitter users create 200 million Tweets every day that would be hard to index without access to the network’s firehose — access to which Google lost with expiration of an agreement last July.

In the end, exactly how Google search results came to be dominated by Google+ pages — either as a result of having little access to other social networks or by intentionally ignoring them — isn’t that important. The important question is whether or not this domination If you haven’t noticed that Google+ pages are increasingly becoming a part of Google search results, you may have noticed Google and Twitter’s increasingly public spat about it.

Twitter argues that by promoting Google+ in search results, Google isn’t providing the most relevant social results. Meanwhile, Google has implied it would promote more pages from Twitter if it had adequate permission to do so. Twitter general council Alex Macgillivray then tweeted an example of why he thought Google’s new results were inefficient: Google search results for the search term “@WWE” — yes, with the “@” symbol — that did not include the organization’s Twitter page.

Now Google has confirmed to Mashable that it has never indexed the “@” symbol. In other words, the search engine has never recognized a Twitter handle when it was formatted that way.

So while a search for “WWE Twitter” still returns the organization’s Twitter feed before its Google+ page, “@WWE” returns the same results as “WWE” — in this case, with Google+ results first. Somehow a search for “+WWE” succeeds in returning a Google+ profile.

But really, Google? The company with a car that drives itself? In more than five years of people searching for Twitter handles, you never got around to adding the @ symbol to your index?

Even without the @ sign being indexed, however, the concern over the results for “@WWE” are valid: About 24,900 people have +1ed or added WWE to their circles on Google+ — but 792,642 people follow WWE on Twitter. In this case, and many others, the Twitter page is a more relevant social result than the Google+ page. Twitter ranks higher than Google+ for the WWE in Yahoo, AOL and Bing results.

On the other hand, Twitter and Facebook haven’t necessarily made it easy for the search engine to feature them in results. Facebook denies Google’s crawlers access to its private pages, for one obvious reason — they’re private. Twitter includes “nofollow” links on its pages that make it hard for Google’s crawlers to index them.

As Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan has pointed out, Google has indexed at least 3 billion pages. But Twitter users create 200 million Tweets every day that would be hard to index without access to the network’s firehose — access to which Google lost with expiration of an agreement last July.

In the end, exactly how Google search results came to be dominated by Google+ pages — either as a result of having little access to other social networks or by intentionally ignoring them — isn’t that important. The important question is whether or not this domination is good for consumers.

Bookmark It

I would suggest lowering your keyword density if it is over 5%. And remember to count singular and plural versions as the same word as Google has changed their search techniques.

Follow me on my facebook

Bookmark It

A good keywording system takes time and thought and can not be constructed in haphazard fashion with expectations of great results. If you create and apply keywords well, the result is faster, more fruitful file searches.

Keywording systems fall into either one of two styles.

Most commonly used, although not always the best, is the open vocabulary. If you look at an image and use whatever words it inspires for the keywords, you’re using an open vocabulary. One day you may keyword an image as Ship, Harbor. Entered on another day, you might have keyworded the very same image as Boat, Port. Another time you might use Watercraft and Harbour.

When searching for this sort of image, who knows what you’ll find or overlook because of inconsistencies in an open vocabulary. Of course, you can look for all entries that contain Harbor or Port or Anchorage or Boat or Ship or Vessel, but it’s hit or miss proposition that requires a vast patience or a good memory. If you find no entry for Boat, you must keep looking, trying other words in your keywords. When you discover Ship, you move on, never discovering all the others that got listed as Watercraft.

In a controlled vocabulary your keywords are limited to a specific set of words. Ideally this list of words is printed in an index or available on a computer for your reference as you apply keywords to images.

As you make entries in your controlled vocabulary system, you should have the option to add a new keyword. If you fail to find a satisfactory keyword for an image, add a new one to fill the hole. This way the keywords build slowly and thoughtfully as need arises. You are spared the monstrous task of building an entire keywording system before you know what you might need.

One long list of all of your keywords makes the task of locating and applying them impossible. Within your keyword index, you’re going to want levels of keywords; categories and sub-categories. Use the primary categories to quickly make significant distinctions within the subject matter. Use sub-categories to make quick breakdowns within the category and add additional sub-categories as needed, but don’t get carried away. Generally three or four levels are as far as you should go. A good breakdown makes it easier to add keywords efficiently and makes the searching easier too.

Suppose your files have lots of animal images. Start with a general category, Animals or Nature or Wildlife. Now, let’s say you have lots of bears among your animals. Try a sub-category, Bears. Use yet another level for details to get down to the fine points, Brown, Grizzly, Kodiak, Polar… and so on. These details are hardly suitable for any other category or sub-category.

A category, Birds, could have sub-categories of types of birds, maybe Eagle is one. details for Eagle might be Bald, Golden and haliaeetus leucocephalus. If you’re tempted to include details like Flying, Egg, Hunting and such, remember, these details apply to many birds. Flying, Egg, Hunting and such might serve better as sub-categories of Birds and not just Eagles.

Limiting the number of choices increases the accuracy of new entries and expedites searches but don’t be so extreme in avoiding new terms that you diminish coverage. A happy medium exists, but it’s up to you to decide where it is.

When keywording an image, look at it and think about what it really shows. What is significant in the image? Look for both the literal and the conceptual significance. A single image is likely to fit into multiple categories and sub-categories, so don’t think you need to apply one set of terms and that’s it. Most images contain a literal subject such as a dog playing in snow. Such an image would obviously earn keywords such as Dogs, Collie, Pets, Winter and Snow. Conceptual keywords for the same image might be Cold, Joy and Freedom. Resist keywording every object that happens to be in the shot; Door, Tree, Mailbox and so on unless they play a significant enough role that someone searching for those objects would really want to see this one too.

For efficiency, use the most basic, generic terms. Don’t use your keywords to show off your vocabulary skills. Your keywords should be kept to a level that is appropriate for your audience. If your images are for osteologists and paleantologists by all means use terms like zygomatic arch and optic foramen. Don’t expect the rest of the world to know what these terms mean though.

Reduce synonyms to the single most suitable word for a category or sub-category. This narrows rather than expands your search vocabulary list. For instance, here is a list of synonyms: precipitation, condensation, downpour, deluge, cloudburst, torrent, rainfall, shower, drizzle, sprinkle, monsoon, plus all their plurals. Rather than create a category, or even a sub-category for each and every one, use a broader term, such as Rain.

And finally, be sure of your spelling. Typos and spelling errors cause images to be missed in searches. Get it right in your master list and make sure to stay with it.

Good captions and keywords enhance the value of your images. An excellent image that never turns up in appropriate situations is a lost cause. Keywording is an important part of successfully bringing your images to market.

Bookmark It

Whenever a user publicly shares a link on Google+, an annotation will show up under that link when it appears in a friend’s search results. For example, if I share a Mashable article about Google+ eliminating pseudonyms publicly on my Google+ page, users who have added me to their circles will see a note that I shared that link if they stumble upon it in Google Search.

Google+ now joins Flickr, Twitter, Quora and Google Buzz as other inputs for Google’s Social Search product. Social Search debuted in 2009 at the Web 2.0 Summit, partly as a response to Bing’s integration with Facebook and Twitter. Social Search highlights what links your friends are sharing on the web and returns results it believes are relevant based on your friends’ interests.

Social Search integration is only the beginning for Google’s plans for combining its search engine and social network. Google intends to revive real-time search with Google+ data and will launch a search engine for Google+ posts. Of course, the tech giant did the same thing with Google Buzz, and we all know what happened to that product.

Please comment and let us know about your thoughts about this article.

Source: http://www.freeseosemtraining.com/google-plus-social-search.htm

Bookmark It

I want to introduce you to an active member of BHW (monsterclicks) who happens to run MetaFever.com. Michael Smith has constantly provided great services not only to the members of BHW, but he has built a solid brand around MetaFever.com


Dave: Everyone wants to talk about how great they are in SEO, so why don’t you tell me about your biggest failure in SEO.

Michael: Years ago I linked up with a group of so called “SEO” guys in India who put in a highly attractive bid for all of our 250 ecommerce websites. At the time I didn’t know much about SEO so they flew in (we met them) and signed a deal with their company and spent over $300,000 expanding their office in New Delhi . . . only to find out months later that they were robbing us blind. So I set out to learn SEO myself and vowed to never repeat such a huge business blunder. Thus I entered into the realm of search engine optimization.

Dave: Wow that really sucks! Since you were primarily an eCommerce guy, how long did it take you to learn the art of SEO?

Michael: For me, it happened really fast once I applied myself. I realized how easy SEO really is – More than anything it’s just a LOT of hard work. I mean it’s On-Site – Content – Backlinks.

Dave: That is true; I find that most people fail simply because they don’t take action with their SEO campaigns. I take it this is where you saw an opportunity?

Michael: Exactly, most internet marketers are focused on doing high levels of analysis and just don’t have the time to do the grunt work of building Link wheels or Link Pyramids etc. So we decided that instead of focusing on becoming a managed SEO agency, we would focus on servicing the DIY SEO clients who knew exactly what they wanted, but just didn’t have the time to either coordinate it all or get it all done.

There is where MetaFever.com steps in and really solves a lot of problems. We have identified the most needed SEO (link building) services and worked hard to provide each of them at highly affordable rates.

Dave: Ok, that last part sounded like a corporate BS answer. What really sets you guys apart from all of the other service providers spread across the various BH and IM forums?

Michael: LOL, busted – ok no more corporate BS. Truth is that when you hire an individual service provider you might be able to save $5 on a given product or service. However, we already deal with over 200 vendors directly and we have taken the initial beating of finding out who is a scammer and who is not. Plus since we buy in bulk we can be competitive with many offshore providers.

Second, each and every service that we provide is manually done. We don’t use software’s like SE Nuke, XRumer, or Scrape Box – so I personally feel that the quality is infinitely better than what others are providing.

Third, we will give you a report with each and every one of our services – you will never have to ask yourself “Did the work get done?” – Because we will prove it was done every time.

Fourth, you can get all of your SEO link building under 1 roof – there is a HUGE convenience factor here that will save you tons of time. We have a pretty slick client management area where all customer reports are loaded and stored. So if you forget what activity you did for a particular domain you can simply login and check.

Dave: It certainly does sound appealing when you put it like that! I know in times past when I built backlinks to my money sites I ran into my fair share of guys who thought they knew what they were doing… Since I am going to email this interview out – is there anything else you think my readers would like to know before we wrap it up?

Dave: Ok thanks Mike, as always it’s been a real pleasure!

Michael: You too Dave, thanks for your hard work and contribution to the industry.

Bookmark It

These suggestions represent the largest potential performance wins for the least development effort. You should address these items first: Leverage browser caching, Combine images into CSS sprites, Minify JavaScript.

Medium Priority

Medium priority. These suggestions may represent smaller wins or much more work to implement. You should address this item next: Defer parsing of JavaScript.

Low Priority

These suggestions represent the smallest wins. You should only be concerned with these items after you’ve handled the higher-priority ones: Minify HTML, Prefer asynchronous resources, Specify a cache validator, Optimize images, Remove query strings from static resources, Specify a Vary: Accept-Encoding header.

What is Page Speed Score?

The Page Speed Score indicates how much faster a page could be. A high score indicates little room for improvement, while a lower score indicates more room for improvement. The Page Speed Score does not measure the time it takes for a page to load.

I’m hoping that today’s article will help you understanding Google Page Speed Online Tool.

Bookmark It

“Woke up today, to a lovely surprise of one of my main websites, the one that I consider my baby, has dropped from a 5 to a 3. Massive kick in the balls, after years of hard work.”

What Ifi Says:

—–googlebot is crawling my website like mad since yesterday —–

“My crawl rate also sky rocketed in the last day or two. It went from very low (relative to site average) to the highest I’ve seen in 3-4 months. Very strange.”

What Stphen Says:

“pr updated for my site from 4 to 3″

What Keliman Says:

“I see google UK been demoted to pr7 from pr8 also seen some sites go up to pr8. My own site went from 1 to 3 and another site from 4 to 3. Not that it means anything but i think the measures here are a little optimistic, my site that raised has no links in the last 2 years the site that dropped has had some great links … Hey ho business as usual.”

It seems that the changes are made into a google Algo. Its an update which has been calculated a month ago. This change is very similar to the last change. It means that Google still considering healthy backlinks pointing to a website but either considering content quality. I have seen drops on the websites those are not equipped with the quality content, also seeing there is a big drop of backlinks. So its just a normal change which has been found on different google servers. Sites from UK got good reputation and went to a good PR. Asian sites going down from a good PR. Overall its a drop in keyword ranking, also drops in PR and Backlinks, too.

Tips to Remeber:

Bookmark It

iPhone 5 again getting good reputation in the market and people are more likely to find out its reviews, photos, videos, mannuals, etc. Following it, a google product i.e. Google translator is gaining popularity and then Tmobile and Apple iCloud are listed under top 10 hot searches made on 31st May, 2011.

Bookmark It

From my experience, one of the best ways to learn about what gets a site penalized in Google, or any other search engine, is first hand knowledge. Because the search engines do not really want you to learn exactly how to rank sites, SEOs have had to learn from experience what works and what doesn’t. Research in this field involves treating the search engines as black boxes affecting an outcome – controlling the input, observing the output. The experiments carried out in the name of SEO involve trial and error – trying out many strategies – using control agents, repetition, and confirmation to choose strategies that consistently achieve positive outcomes. This experience also gains an understanding of what doesn’t work. And if you do enough research, and take enough risks, some of these failed experiments will also lead to an even more revealing result – the triggers of a Google penalty.


What You Learn By Getting Penalized In Google

Every SEO professional has experienced firsthand the outcomes of successful techniques that result in better ranks. And most have read the forums and the guidelines that point siteowners to the sanctioned techniques for pushing rank. And every ethical SEO knows there are consequences for ignoring those guidelines. But in spite of the great efforts made to avoid them, it’s the triggering of real Google penalties that are the most instructive, especially when they’re the consequence of rank boosting efforts. Clearly, the most in depth knowledge will be held by those few SEOs who have actual experience with sites getting penalized in Google, especially if they not only understand the reasons, but also strategize the unwinding. It’s one thing to read about penalties in the forums, and a completely different thing to cause them, and then have to deal with them. Being penalized in Google is something that happens, and not infrequently.

For more insights into Google penalties, consider these suggestions from their guidelines:

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
Don’t send automated queries to Google.
Don’t load pages with irrelevant words.
Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

This is basically a list of “don’ts” whose existence proves their success. You’ll get penalized in Google if caught doing any of these things. But how do you think this list originated? Every single item on this list comes from a strategy that at one time could successfully push rank. My research proves that these techniques still can be used to achieve high ranks, it’s just that if you get caught doing it you get penalized in Google.

Is There Ever An Appropriate Use Of Black Hat SEO?

Because I work for clients who rely on natural search to drive their businesses, ethical considerations rule out taking risks that could get their sites penalized in Google. But the question is worthy of discussion, given the source of the standards, and our lack of influence in the arbitration and penalty process.

In the course of my work, I am constantly made aware of sites that successfully use unsanctioned rank boosting techniques, flaunting Google’s guidelines and still achieving stunning search results. While it is clearly in Google’s interest to be able to identify these sites, the truth is that the Googlebot is behind the curve in the techniques that can automatically detect sophisticated guideline abuse.

The more sites that rank successfully, while defying the standard of behavior set by Google, the more we need to consider the philosophy of search ethics. Think about this: black hat SEO is not against the law, it’s just counter to some rules made by some search engine. If your competition is outranking you, and he’s doing it with technical tricks that can’t be held to account, do you have the right to use the same (not illegal) techniques, even if you know Google would penalize you if they discover them? We all want Google to be fair. But the real world message, not heard by all those who worship Google, is that Google is not able to be fair. The techniques that trick the robots are no longer simple tricks like hiding text on a background of the same color (a trick that still can work, by the way). The tricks now involve higher level code, sites that dynamically serve static pages to targeted spiders, identify the Googlebot and directly manipulate it, hide huge numbers of text and links with CSS, and post virtually undetectable doorway pages and redirects. The task of regulating the behavior of technologically robust black hat SEOs is not small. The fact that I see sites that risk being penalized in Google, but are ranking with great success, suggests a problem that might not be going away.

How Efforts To Identify Spam Can Hurt Innocents

So we know that there are unsanctioned techniques being used on sites, and we know that Google is trying hard to identify them. But when you make the rules as well as enforce them, real justice can sometimes become invisible. If a site is penalized in Google, and the reason turns out to be technical and not an intentionally deceptive act, does Google have any responsibility to inform the site owner? I’ve seen sites lose rank because the Googlebot spidered the pages in a development area not intended for visitors. I once bought four related domain names, created sites and interlinked them extensively. They had unique content, but that didn’t matter. Until the interlinking was removed, these sites were penalized in Yahoo and suppressed in Google. Any brand new site receiving high level SEO will disappear into the Google sandbox until 6-8 months. In spite of the mythology spread on the forums, the sandbox is a real Google penalty, and I can site examples from my own sites.

The sandbox is one Google penalty that uniquely affects brand new sites. Google is terrified that a brilliant SEO is going to take a new site to the top of the SERPs and Google will be made complicit in the resulting scam. Just by requiring a trial period on the web, the chances of such a fraud being successful is decreased. And Google only sandboxes sites that garner lots of SEO – a site that shows no rank pushing effort will not receive this beginner’s Google penalty.

Some rather innocent sounding web strategies can trigger a Google penalty. Buying links, for example. This was a legitimate rank pushing technique not long ago that can now hurt your site. You can still find ads touting this strategy and link farms still exist. Owning lots of domains, each addressing a particular keyword set was once considered a brilliant move. I have clients who used this strategy successfully for a while. But when all those domains were identified to be part of one main enterprise, all those domains ceased being indexed. And the company’s main website suffered a manually imposed suppression across all their keyword sets, a kind of lesser Google penalty.

I’ve seen pages disappear from the Google index for no apparent reason. I believe that mistakes occur in their effort to filter spam out of the index. If your innocent site gets caught in such a filter and loses all rank, do you think justice will find you? It might if you make enough of the right kind of noise. But be warned: Google does not provide guidance when something like this occurs. A message through their form results in an automated message which claims the automated process fixes itself. Google claims to not make manual adjustments. Yet I know this statement is false. I have several examples of interventions by Google on both sides of the problem: manually penalizing, and manually releasing that penalty.

If You Think You’ve Been Penalized In Google

Sometimes sites disappear without being penalized in Google, and then come back at a later spidering. But if several big crawls have occured and your site is still out of the index, you must become proactive. More information is here.

If the reason you were penalized stems from unsanctioned SEO and intentionally deceptive techniques, you may not be able to regain the level of rank you once experienced without extensive work beyond the unwinding. But after cleaning up your site, you can still regain inclusion in the index, and can begin a program to build real relevance and structure that can support your ranks legitimately. Consider being penalized in Google as a wake up call.

The most frustrating cases involve sites penalized by Google for no apparent reason. An innocent site removed from the index by mistake, or for reasons beyond the understanding of the owner is a real victim of the search monopoly. If you feel this has happened to your site, don’t take it quietly, and don’t give up. A class action lawsuit may be in the best interest of everyone if it can hold Google more accountable for its errors. But for this to happen, you need to join with others similarly harmed. Tell us your story.

If you want experienced guidance, contact me with “Google Penalty” on the subject line. I answer every email, and will help you both identify the problem and strategize the restoration of your ranks.

Related Aticles:
How to Recover a Ban Website from Google

Bookmark It